Storytelling and cultural relevance can be powerful tools for effective and inclusive science communication. Dr. Mónica Feliú-Mójer will share examples and how these strategies can be applied to meaningfully engage different publics with science, especially historically marginalized populations.
Dr. Mónica Feliú-Mójer is a scientist-turned-communicator who engages historically underserved and overlooked audiences, especially Puerto Ricans and Latinxs, with science. She applies a cultural lens to science communication and storytelling to make science more equitable and inclusive and seeks to change stereotypes about scientists of color. Through science communication training and mentoring, she helps underrepresented scientists step into the power of their identities and stories and supports their career development.
Feliú-Mójer serves as director of communications and science outreach for Ciencia Puerto Rico (CienciaPR), a nonprofit and global community of more than 13,000 scientists, students, educators, and allies creating social impact in Puerto Rico. She leads communications strategy and several communications and outreach efforts, including Aquí Nos Cuidamos, a project focused on promoting COVID-19 prevention and wellness in Puerto Rico through community and science engagement and multimedia content. She also serves as the director at Science Communication Lab, an innovative nonprofit organization dedicated to using multimedia storytelling to engage the public, including educational and scientific communities, in the journey and wonder of science. She is the lead producer of “Background to Breakthrough,” a collection of short films expanding the definition of who can become a scientist by showcasing how scientists of color have succeeded because of their backgrounds.
Her work has been featured on Telemundo, Latino USA, and Google Arts & Culture as well as in El Nuevo Día and Scientific American, among others.
Feliú-Mójer is an Emerson Collective Fellow, part of the Recover and Renew Cohort, a cross-disciplinary group committed to exploring how issues of equity and justice have shaped the pandemic—and how we can center both on the path to building anew. She completed her undergraduate degree in human biology at the University of Puerto Rico at Bayamón and her doctorate in neurobiology at Harvard University.
This event is sponsored by the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication’s Center for Science Communication Research (SCR) and co-sponsored by the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, Just Futures Institute, and Center for Latino/a & Latin American Studies.
This lecture is part of the UO School of Journalism and Communication’s annual Robert W. and Laurie Johnston Lecture series. This series brings professionals to the SOJC for thought-provoking lectures, workshops, and discussions about the thorny issues today’s journalists face.
https://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/engaging_people_with_science_through_storytelling_and_culturally_relevant_science_communication#.YfwaF-rMKUn